Remote Fishroom Plumbing Questions ?

[muir]

After trying to make all the equipment under the stand I have decided to remotely locate the equipment in a near by storage room. My problem is that the location is 2 rooms away and will require the drain to travel 20 or so feet with only 2.5 ft of fall. Is that enough fall for 2000+- GPH?


thanks in advance
muir

 

[Gwalker]

Depends on the size of the drain lines. You also might need to put vent pipes on the drain lines near the aquarium to prevent air blockage.

G.

 

[muir]

Hey G,

Thanks for the reply. My overflow has two 2" bulkheads side by side in the external overflow. I plan on two 4x4x2 tees from the overflow into 4" pvc. There will need to be 3 90's in the 20ft run.

I appreciate any input

 

[Gwalker]

I think you should be fine with the 4" line. If you have any problems it will most likely be due to air blockage. You can put a vent pipe at the highest point of the drain near the aquarium to prevent this. The vent needs to extend higher than the water level of your tank. You can try it without a vent and see if you have a lot of gurgling. If you do, you risk air blockage which can result in aquarium overflow. Another easy way to gauge this is to see if the water in the overflow rises and falls periodically. You can look in my gallery on pages 2 and 3 to see my shop plumbing. I used two 3" lines and the drains run about 60' to the back of my shop. I had to put in many vent pipes due to all the water traffic collecting air. My main pump runs 200gpm through the drains.

Good luck.

 

[AcroSteve]

Should be fine. Esp with the 4"

 

[blueroof]

4 inch is huge. Are you worried about noise, sloshing in the pipe?
2K of water per hour wont come close to filling that pipe. Maybe restrict the exit with a gate valve until tuned, with some margin for error. Just a thought.

 

[muir]

well, in you guy's opinion should I go with two 2" into one 4", two 2" into one 3", or just run the two 2" all the way to the sump.


much thanks

 

[muir]

bump

 

[Bax]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8069968#post8069968 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by blueroof
4 inch is huge. Are you worried about noise, sloshing in the pipe?
2K of water per hour wont come close to filling that pipe. Maybe restrict the exit with a gate valve until tuned, with some margin for error. Just a thought.

I am in agreement here, you'd have to keep the 4" pipe full to limit noise. It could be done but you'd need a 4" valve to do it. If you do it with 4", look into a 4" butterfly valve, when you get to that size they are a little less expensive than a BV or GV. Assuming you would be using scd 80 PVC, the valve would be sandwiched between two flanges. Either way once you are up to 4", valves are pricey.

FWIW

I have a similar situation in the 260 I am laying out. There will be about a 2 - 3' drop from display to the sump in the sump room and about 30' of drain pipe. I am only looking for about 1250 to 1500 in drain flow so I was thinking two 2" lines.

 

[TacoKing]

I have a 15' drop and about 40' of horizontal travel.. I use two 2" drains and have an Iwaki 100RLT as my return pump. Very silent. Works out well.

 

[muir]

Thanks everyone,

2 x 2" it is. I will feed the skimmer with one with a valve and let the rest go straight to the sump. I figure I will have around 12' of head on the return, any suggestions on a pump?

 

[WDLV]

I'm a little late here, but I have a similarly sized system. I have 2" drains also. I initially used 4" PVC where the overflow pipes joined. I found that it was excessive, so I just left it as a 2" pipe all the way to the sump. I have run about 2500 gph through it with plenty of room to spare. There was no toilet flushing sound either.
Using one to feed the skimmer is an excellent idea.

 

[sidewinder770]

I am running about 75' of 2" pipe that drops a total of about 2' and has a flow of about 2000-2400gph and I actually have ballvalves to slow the flow down since my overflow teeth can't keep up with the flow! I also have about 8- 90 degree bends in that run. I don't think you'll have any problems at all going 2" all the way based on my experience.

 

[Whaledriver]

Check out the frictional head loss for the size pipeing you want to use. My guess is that 2 inch should be fine.

A bigger question is why you need so much flow through you sump. Since you only need enough water to run your filter systems look at what flow you actually need. Look into a recirculating skimmer also.

The flow for the tank itself can come from tunze type in tank pump or a closed loop type setup. Both of these options also reduce your electrical useage.